r/interestingasfuck • u/HimelTy • 4h ago
'Internet may be just a passing fad' Article in Daily Mail, December 5, 2000
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u/map-daddy 4h ago
Ah, that paper that famously never fails to understand the modern world
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u/Whole_Mongoose1854 4h ago
I mean, it was 2000. I used the internet since more or less the beginning. Even among early adopters, the general sense was it was the future, but it’s not like most people knew how exactly that would happen, or what that timetable would look like. And, I can’t stress this enough, “nerds” and various niche groups took to it easily, and people were coming on board sure, but it really sometimes felt like maybe the masses might just not pick it up. Women generally wanted nothing to do with it, and it was seen as a kind of a waste of time hobby for dorks by a LOT of the population. It was certainly clear to me by 2000 there were no brakes on the train anymore, but the opinion in that article was far from uncommon even in that year. And indeed, it took 2 innovations that were still a few years out to truly bring everyone along, smartphones and social media in its current form.
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u/metal_maxine 3h ago
Having a search engine that actually gave you anything close to what you were looking for was a game-changer as well. (Google wasn't exactly life-changing, but when every other search engine just relied on accurate meta-tagging by site owners to get you something very approximately the right subject or having site owners submit their own listings... it was such an improvement to have one that looked at the page text)
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u/Random_182f2565 4h ago
Have another example?
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u/foreverflyingsparrow 3h ago
The paper campaigned for Brexit. Look what it got us
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u/Ender505 3h ago edited 38m ago
In fairness, I am constantly seeing posts here on Reddit describing AI the same way. Luddites are everywhere
Edit: downvoters, you are the authors of that newspaper article
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u/holytriplem 4h ago
This isn't even an agedlikemilk thing. It was very obvious even by December 2000 it wasn't going to be a passing fad
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u/External-Praline-451 3h ago
I didn't see it as a passing fad, but it totally felt uninteresting to me in 2000. In my friend group we just used it for boring uni administration stuff, we were too busy having fun irl (as the kids say these days)!
It wasn't until a few years later I got into the forums, etc, and even then they weren't as addictive, they were fun to connect with. It wasn't used for every bit of life like now, such as banking, booking stuff, maps, etc. Even in 2006 when I went on a year long trip to Australia, we used it minimally for emails home and a bit of job search, with no smart phones.
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u/kakakakapopo 3h ago
It absolutely rocked my shit when I got on it in 1998. I remember accessing it via a 'free' ISP where you just had to pay for a national rate telephone no. (think it was about 2p a minute) in exchange for a big ass banner ad across the top of your screen. No monthly subscription was revelatory.
Anyway, I had an onion tied on my belt as was the fashion at the time.
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u/RockYourAmadeus 2h ago
I remember the 1st time downloading something-a font! It was amazing! It only took 15 minutes too! And recall back then you could only get those big yellow Onions, it sucked. But the ferry only cost a nickel......
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u/SirkutBored 4h ago
Provided you're old enough maybe you've forgotten just how slow 56k dialup was even for simple websites. That's before you got to the expense, by 2000 not everyone had access to a flat fee ($20 was a going rate) per month and were paying sometimes per minute. It was the rollout of broadband that breathed new life into things.
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u/holytriplem 3h ago
I do remember how slow it was, but once you had email there was no going back.
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u/darekd003 2h ago
You’re right. They’re wrong. If this article was mid-early 90s then MAYBE I’d agree but by 2000 there was no chance we were going back.
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u/SirkutBored 3h ago
Email was a thing going back to the 70s and most email I received was either some lame 'forward this to 10 friends' type thing or spam. ICQ and other IM platforms was where it was at for me. That said, I knew plenty of people who considered the time suck as enough of a negative to cancel their service. Using your credit card online was still a risky idea.
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u/foreverflyingsparrow 3h ago
The Internet was in its infancy like ai is today. Doesn't mean it was a fad.
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u/TeaOk2254 36m ago
I always had piles of those AOL CDs. I'd just start the free trial month, cancel a day or two before it ended, then use the next one to just sign up again. Worked for a surprisingly long time... Until I forgot to cancel & my dad got the credit card charge the next month that is. 😅
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u/cornmonger_ 1h ago
i remember 56k being amazingly fast when it came out so maybe you're not remembering, maybe you're comparing then and now
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u/NearbyKaleidoscope8 4h ago
I wonder what that timeline looks like — no internet, no emails, no online maps, no pdf sharing of books, no online music catalogues, no streaming services.
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u/mynameisnotsparta 3h ago
It was slow and harder than now but it’s what we knew. Phone calls were made, we had more downtime, we went to the library for books and all reading materials or bookstores, music stores for music. We watched what was on broadcast TV and had to wait a week for a new episode. We shared physical hard copies of books and music. We’d have to photocopy files at the library.
Nothing was instantaneous. If we needed shopping we panned it. Not click and buy.
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u/RockYourAmadeus 2h ago
"Nothing was instantaneous".
And that part is so huge. We appreciated things in ways you just don't see anymore. Now we just expect it. And then get mad when something slows down for any reason.
We should have made the internet available for only 12 hours a day.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Style52 4h ago
We started out with no computers, and in many ways, it was amazing. The pace of life was slower because, without instant connectivity, things naturally took more time. People communicated through letters, made phone calls to homes or offices, and when you were on leave, you were genuinely unreachable. There was a sense of separation between work and personal life that seems increasingly rare today.
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u/PsyOpBunnyHop 3h ago
We started out with no computers
WHAT?!?! That can't be true. You can't just make broad statements like that without evidence!
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u/Ahayzo 2h ago
In the beginning, God created the CPU.
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u/MurkyPotato3434 1h ago
There was a sense of separation between work and personal life that seems increasingly rare today.
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u/Rivenaleem 1h ago
We started out with no fire, and in many ways, it was amazing. The place of life was slower because, without cooking, things naturally took more time. People didn't communicate as we did not have the time to develop nuanced languages and writing, people were genuinely unreachable. There was a sense of separation and mistrust of the other and inter tribe fighting was common and brutal.
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u/AngelicTifarett 4h ago
Alot like the past. I don't know if we would be as open to new ideas...or if we even really have the internet to thank for that. But mental health would probably be a little better and physical health too with everyone outside more often taking things at a slower pace. I suppose some research and breakthroughs would be harder to achieve but certainly not impossible. The internet is after all a tool and resource not the actual source of information.
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u/NewSchoolFool 3h ago
So much better imo.
Letters to friends/family meant more than a quick email. You had to literally exercise in order to do basic things like pay bills, post letters, go shopping etc.
Road maps were great... & everyone had one in their car.
Real book/music collections were something to share with friends/family, and it was cool having a stereo system with albums to show off to your mates.
Renting new release videos, going to the movies, or having to wait every week for your favourite TV show was so much more wholesome.
Things really have changed for the worse.
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u/dlanod 1h ago
Counterpoint:
I keep in touch with people I might not have done previously because it's easier now. I feel more connected than I did before I had email etc.
Road maps were awful. They were often out of date, they were often impossible to interpret. I definitely remember being 30 minutes late once because I was in the city and every turn off marked no turn but it wasn't clear in the map. Trying to read them as a driver was dangerous and technically illegal, so you'd have to pull over - or find somewhere to pull over.
I still have real books but I can also take advantage of carrying a whole library in my tablet if I want.
I also have a much bigger music appreciation and library than pre-Spotify. Paying for CDs ($30+ in 90s prices) meant I only ever owned a handful.
I do miss our video store but I also now have access to many more options. I'll call this one a draw. And I'm still waiting a week for most of my TV shows.
There's definitely worse stuff - social media was briefly good, but the exploitation of the addictive elements is not. Turning computer games into a service for no meaningful reason is not good. But broadly the Internet has improved stuff, even what you listed.
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u/Cannabrewer 1h ago
That is a logical fallacy called the fallacy of antiquity. Thinking things would be better in the past.
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 3h ago
Life was not perfect before the internet but it was absolutely better. I think it's a safe assumption that we would still be going in the same direction but slower and mostly happier. We were ok with waiting 2 to 6 weeks to get a package and not be able to track it. We were fine with having to go out to see a movie or wait for VHS or cable. Making things faster isn't always making it better.
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u/Island_Maximum 4h ago
I once got into an argument with a friend over his belief that the internet wouldn't catch on - in like 2013.
I pointed out his Xbox, Netflix, YouTube, Cell phone and computer that he was glued to 24-7 all ran on the internet.
"Yeah but nobody uses them." was his answer.
🤷♂️
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u/lonelypenguin20 1h ago
how is he doing today?
is he saying the sky it brown or smth?
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u/Island_Maximum 1h ago
He would waver between denying what he said and doubling down depending on who was around.
However, he obviously didn't keep track because someone else called him on it too.
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u/Sithil83 4h ago
2000! I was already online for 5 years at this point, probably with DSL by then, and cable was right around the corner. I would have called this headline bullshit even back then.
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u/twister-uk 3h ago
9 years for me,.otherwise yup. This article might have made some sort of sense had it been written a few years earlier, but by 2000 it was rapidly becoming a more integral part of both personal and professional life.
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u/SenescenseSteel 4h ago
Who was the journalist that wrote this and is he still alive to write about the downfall of AI?
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u/utzutzutzpro 4h ago
In 2000 I was online daily for 10 hours. IRC+battlecom.
Is a little late for doom-saying post Matrix launch.
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u/MattyGWS 4h ago
Today I purchased 6 books, a collection of guides to identifying the following;
- mushrooms and fungus
- trees
- wild flowers
- birds
- butterflies
- stars/planets
The reason? I saw a mushroom the other day and went online to look it up and all I could find was AI generated websites with AI generated images of mushrooms with AI generated nonsensical names and descriptions.
I can no longer trust the internet to identify something as deadly as mushrooms... So I figured hey, maybe I should start a collection of books with information about things before AI fully takes over all information digital and physical.
If you guys have any other book collections about info similar to this, feel free to recommend. I'm kinda interested in European insect identification too but I can branch out to other things.
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u/ElectronMaster 3h ago edited 3h ago
If you're using Google, add "before:2022" to the end of your search, that will filter out any results first indexed after 2022 which was when chatgpt released.
This only really works for stuff that existed before 2022 though. But for identifying mushrooms it would be perfect.
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u/Sea_Cucumber_69_ 3h ago
The daily mail has always been a trash news, the Enquirer is more trust worthy.
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u/TheDevilWearsKhaki 4h ago
Context: the dot com bubble had recently burst and having a fancy website for your company was no longer a sure-fire way to attract investors.
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u/metal_maxine 4h ago
Also, there wasn't wide broadband uptake in 2000. We were still on dial-up (by the minute) and my school boasted of having a newly-installed ISDN line so that multiple computers could use the internet at once.
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u/giraloco 4h ago
You can always find someone saying something stupid. Nobody in their right mind thought the Internet was a fad. Now crypto was the opposite..
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u/MrMoog26 3h ago
I remember David Bowie’s famous interview with Jeremy Paxman in the late 90s, I think. Bowie was extolling the virtues of the internet and basically predicted how it would come to be a part of all our lives and how exciting and how dangerous that could all turn out.
Paxman did his usual sneery “Its just a fad” type thing.
The interview is on YT and is a fascinating picture of that time when the WWW was beginning to spread its influence across the planet. As always, Bowie was well ahead of the game.
“I think we’re actually on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”
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u/Yogshemesh 4h ago
There's still time.
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u/AngelicTifarett 4h ago
It's something I dream about. If it were like South Park and all internet came from a single giant router I would drive a semi into that thing 😅
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u/kageseb 4h ago
In fairness to the daily mail...I thought I would never say that... It was expensive in 2000... At that time in the UK you used to pay by minute like a phone call. There were also on and off peak times which has different rates plus your monthly subscription. Plus it tied up your phone line.
They also mentioned information overload which is true.
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u/kuluka_man 3h ago
That's weird because by 2000 the internet was widely adopted and culturally entrenched and there was no doubt it was here to stay.
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u/Particular_Space4398 2h ago
Not like the Daily Mail to be out of touch..
I was a teenager at the time and we all knew the internet wasn't just a fad. Sure it was slow back then and you had to take the phoneline out to use it. But everyone was getting pc's around that time and AOL was offering free internet.
There were websites to check out. Messenger. Message boards. Email. File sharing. Friends Reunited. Flash games. Ot forgetting educational or work purposes.
It was nothing compared to the internet now and was much harder to access, but it was the very beginning.
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u/Deliriousious 3h ago
A passing fad…
And now, it’s the backbone of society… if it disappeared, I think humanity might just collapse.
But honestly, even back then, it was very evident it was not just a fad.
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u/CrispyDave 2h ago
The Internet as it was in 2000 if not a fad certainly did not last.
The publicly owned and run free for all soon got replaced by advertising based corporate interests.
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u/driver004 2h ago
I miss those old IRC rooms
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 1h ago
IRC was how we used to hook up and it was a gamble every time and that was part of the fun.
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u/tdfast 3h ago
This is how all those “AI is failing” posts are going to look. It’s in its infancy now and not working but companies will never give up. The price for them is incalculable it’s so big.
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u/Hakopuffyx2 4h ago
I mean with all the AI, Bots and disinformation it might actually end up just like the article with more and more people just giving up with online life
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u/gringo1980 4h ago
Oh man, I remember all those “the internet is a fad” stories all over the late 90s, I even remember bill oreilly saying it in the mid 00s, gotta sell news to the geezers
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u/One_Vision_ 4h ago edited 3h ago
Nahhh, they just left AOL because everyone figured out you don't need them for internet access and mail and IRC
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u/CHERNO-B1LL 12m ago
This could be the way it goes with AI, but then times are very different now. Everyone is connected and online and at least somewhat savvy about modern tech. We all have phones and social media whether you're gen alpha or gen X, boomers are retired so who cares, but everyone kind of hates AI, or is threatened by AI, the only power users are those who stand to benefit by selling it or use it to reduce overhead and increase profit. Which is fuck all actual people. And it's not revolutionising the way we do business or communicate like the Internet did. It's replacing us doing the things that make us money, give us purpose and make us feel useful, and even the things that we enjoy to do like art and writing and music. I think it's going to be much messier and less clear cut.
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u/Chunky_Snarflblargh 4h ago
For many it was, I know plenty who "gave up" using it for anything else than banking (which they don't consider to be "using the internet". Some of them are still struggling to find information even though they have browsers and google on their phone.
For my own part I use it a lot, but actually less and less (just specific services as opposed to going "exploring" like I once did). If we ever get a shielded network where spambots and certain countries are blocked out, I'll be really happy. Internet today is a junkyard.
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u/jrhawk42 4h ago
I was there... honestly if you compare what the internet does today the internet back then looks like a fad.
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u/foreverflyingsparrow 3h ago
It means it was in its infancy. Like ai is today. Doesn't mean it was a fad, quite the opposite actually
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u/jrdiver 2h ago
Likely wont go away but needs to find its correct form place - which for AI - I think we are still working on. the current setup isnt sustainable.
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u/littleproducer 1h ago
I’d argue heavily against the idea that the internet found its correct form, I don’t know if I’d say it’s still being worked on though.
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u/bdsaxophone 4h ago
TBH, it is very different today than it was in the beginning. It's designed to be user-friendly, so that someone without deep computer knowledge can use it...not so much in the beginning.
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u/Juicemoose222 4h ago
Hmm almost like thats literally the comparison they are making by posting this 😂
Everyone whining about how ai is useless doesnt know what agentic capabilities it has as of oct 2026, forget them knowing how to actually implement it. Because, now get ready... it isnt user friendly
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u/Ok-Secret-981 3h ago
No we whine because it creates lazy art, puts people out of jobs, may prove to be the end of humanity, poisons water, makes people paranoid due to deep fakes, puts up the prices of computer components, steals from people, and a lot more. But sure, it’s not user friendly.
I was born in 94 and I can tell you, we knew the internet was an actual useful resource that was only going to improve.
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u/BugsyM 3h ago
I'm not much older than you, but I did build my first computer before 2000. There were definitely people that had the same opinion on computers as you do of AI. Claiming to know otherwise because you were 6 is weird.
A lot of people vehemently told everyone that would listen that seat belts were bad too, when they first started getting pushed. There's always some fear mongerer on the sidelines of new technology, and they're always spewing crazy unprovable statements that this is the thing that's going to end humanity. We'd be stuck in the caves still if the inventors paid the doom sayers any mind.
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u/Ahayzo 2h ago
And on the flip side, there's also always people who act like just because people were wrong about a new technology being bad in the past, they're inherently wrong about it now because new technology is obviously always good no matter what, because it was before.
Turns out dumbasses think AI is inherently good no matter what just the same as other dumbasses think AI is inherently bad no matter what.
What people thought about seatbelts, computers, or the internet, is 100% irrelevant to whether people today are right or wrong about AI.
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u/BugsyM 1h ago
You're commenting on a picture of people calling the internet a passing fad, telling me that people saying the internet is a passing fad is irrelevant.
People predicting the fall of humanity in the past is 100% irrelevant to people predicting the end of humanity now. I guess you've convinced me, I'll start resupplying my bunker. Thank you for blessing me with your wisdom.
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u/Ok-Secret-981 1h ago
Okay weird flex, I’m sorry I went out of line o’wise one of the computer bows
I never claimed I was an expert at 6. I nearly said I remember people being more accepting of the internet.
Plus I noticed you ignored all the other factually proven issues with AI…
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u/BugsyM 25m ago
We're talking about how people felt in the year 2000 about the internet. Actually being a part of computer culture in the year 2000 is wildly relevant, not a "weird flex".
You wanted me to address your 7 points in essay format for you? Most of your points were made for computers, aside from deep fakes.. and AI wasn't the beginning or even the current tool used for that. Before AI was driving the prices up, everyone was doom and glooming over cryptomining. Before that it was floods, and so on, and so on.
There's always bad that comes with the good. I've seen the "end of humanity" come and go a few times by now, but as I told the other commenter, you guys have shown me the folly of my ways. I concede, you're right. Doom and gloom is assured, I shall be stocking my bunkers.
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u/Ok-Secret-981 23m ago
Okay whatever you say. You can’t be arsed to argue my points then I’m doing the same man. Enjoy your time in your bunker I guess.
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u/whereisthequicksand 4h ago
This was also about the time that everyone who worked for dotcom startups was out of work. It looked pretty dire for a while and I can see how a crappy paper could get away with “it’s the end of the Internet.”
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u/crypticsilenc3 4h ago
I remember a girl said this to me in middle school in the 90s and I just laughed, in my mind this future had already arrived.
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u/R7SOA19281 4h ago
The news is basically matched betting, they post both sides of the story and that way they’ll always be right
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u/sengirminion 3h ago
I remember working in a call center like 10 years ago for the fraud department of a bank. And thus customer I got was annoyed we declined their credit card on a trip. I apologized and unlocked their card and offered suggestions on avoiding impacts in the future (as we were trained to do) and one of the suggestions was to go online and update any travel plans where they were going to be swiping their credit card in a place far away from home, especially for big purchases.
The customer angrily said "We don't do THE INTERNET!" And hung up the phone. Smartest person I ever talked to.
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u/MelodicPreparation93 3h ago
I bet those experts from the virtual society project feel pretty silly now.
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u/MrrQuackers 3h ago
In 2000? Little late for that. I was already loving chat rooms and video games.
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u/Peakomegaflare 3h ago
Soooo funny enough. The internet as we know it came to life around 2002. Before then it was kinda this weird space of enthusiasts, and then before that was Usenet. Good times. They were definitely not paying attention to reality for sure, but it was definitely more of a corporate tool and enthusiast's workspace than anything at the time.
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u/Raikkku 3h ago
Then came porn, and...
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u/Low_Hurry_1807 3h ago
The Daily Fail is eternally just desperate so will make up any bollocks for engagement
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u/thejourneybegins42 3h ago
Internet is gonna be around forever, but the dead internet theory seems to be more and more real.
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u/BlackRaspberryJammin 2h ago
I was there at least in 94 but might have started in 93. I connected to a local BBS and used Telnet to connect to an ISP, Concentric, in Orlando with a dial-up at 2kbs. All that extra made it even slower than it could have been. I remember the day I saw the Netscape browser and my jaw dropped.
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u/RecentCredit5701 1h ago
Wouldn’t that be awesome if we all moved away from the internet. I wonder how life would be like.
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u/ekydfejj 1h ago
This is the Daily Mail, they may run this again next week. I already had a job that depended on the internet and likely laughed like crazy at this.
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u/cornmonger_ 1h ago
it'd be one thing to say that in the mid 90s. by 2000 that was blatantly stupid
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u/VirginiaLuthier 1h ago
When things got fast enough to download color pics, it got a bit more interesting
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u/xyyzzz514 42m ago
Yes .. .. same goes for AI. NO one is saying AI wont stay.. Its just who will stay with AI like in internet era after the fall.
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u/Setekh79 34m ago
I couldn't help but chuckle when I got to the 'Daily Mail' part of the title.
Not understanding anything and always getting things wrong, that's about par for them.
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u/Cletus_Crawford 3h ago
I think about this every time I see a subreddit ban AI. Mellenials have turned into boomers from 1999
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u/ThrowAbout01 2h ago
People can try to say that AI is the same way, but the internet was actually useful.
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u/FrankDrebinOnReddit 4h ago
The Daily Mail is nothing if not consistent.